HEALTH

Motherhood should be a rewarding and fulfilling experience. But for far too many women, it is life-threatening. In fact, the period when women are most at risk of death is during pregnancy, childbirth and the month and a half following childbirth. A woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth every minute of every day throughout the year-more than 500,000 women a year.

This problem is overwhelmingly one of less developed countries. In fact, the map of maternal-related deaths is, for the most part, a map of poverty and marginalization. Maternal death is the health indicator that most clearly illustrates the result of differences between rich and poor countries. About 99 percent of the hundreds of thousands of women who die each year live in low-income countries. A woman living in an industrialized country faces a 1 in 4,000 lifetime risk of death during pregnancy or childbirth, while a woman living in eastern or southern Africa faces a 1 in 15 lifetime risk. In western and central Africa it is 1 in 16, and in South Asia it is 1 in 43.

Read the WOW! issue briefs "Supporting Healthy and Empowered Mothers" and "A New Century for Timor Leste."